2024-2025 Top Council in the State of Washington

and
4-Star Council

Reminder: Membership Meetings

This is a reminder that if you would like to be involved in our Council’s decision-making or have ideas that might be beneficial to our mission, to attend our upcoming Membership Meeting on Tuesday evening, February 10th at 7:00 PM in the basement of St. Olaf’s Gallager Center. Our following meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 10th.

We will discuss events and activities for the upcoming months and would value your input and suggestions as we move forward. Thanks to everyone for all your support.

Our Officers

Chaplain – Father Albert Arulappan
Grand Knight – Mark Maruda
Deputy Grand Knight – Vacant
Chancellor – Brian Tucker
Advocate – John Rebar
Recorder – David Graves
Financial Secretary – Larry Devlin
Treasurer – Roy Behling
Warden – Leo Beer
Inside Guard- Allen Beck
Outside Guard – Vacant
Trustee 3 Year – David Meier
Trustee 2 Year – John Wahlfors
Trustee 1 Year – Alan Arnesen
Lecturer- Gary Fahey

If you would like to serve in one of the vacant positions, please notify Grand Knight Mark Maruda or Financial Secretary Larry Devlin

ACTION ALERT

Tomorrow at 4:00 PM, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will hear SB 5826 Access at post-secondary institutions to medication abortion. Please sign in con today to prevent the use of state funds to further induce college students to end their pregnancies.

As described in the Senate committee hearing, the bill requires public institutions of higher education with student health centers to offer access to medication abortion. If the institution does not have a health center, it must train current student support staff on information and referral services for medication abortion. All public institutions of higher education must also maintain a web page on reproductive health.

Implementation is expected to require $899,000.

During public testimony, college students noted that they are unable to succeed in their course of study if pregnant. The solution to this problem is not abortion, it would be services at our post-secondary institutions to support pregnant students.

Please sign in con for this bill.

Take Action!

Paint and Potluck

Our Family Director, Brother Asa Rubman and Brother Jonathan Jordon have put together a great event for the children of the Parish called Paint and Potluck on February 6th with setup beginning at 3 PM in the Parish Hall, followed by confessions, then the actual event at 6 PM. Please come join in and see what they have in store.

Upcoming Events

Roadside Cleanup

We will be doing our quarterly roadside cleanup of the 2 miles south of the Hood Canal Bridge on Highway 3 on February 28th. We’ll meet at St. Olaf’s at 9 AM and carpool to the worksite. If at least 8 Brother Knights join us, we will likely be able to complete the work before noon. So, please come along and help make a difference in our community!

Fish Fry

We will be doing a Lenten Fish Fry (actually a bake) on March 6th in the Parish Hall. Last year was a great success, thanks to the leadership of John Rebar so we’ve asked him to take the lead again and he has graceously accepted. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to the date.

St. Olaf’s Monthly Pancake Breakfast

Our next breakfast is Sunday, March 1st. 

We just completed our February Pancake Breakfast and it was a great success, thanks to the fantastic turn-out of Brother Knights, making it such a joy to take in the fraternity of the many amazing men of our parish and of our Council! It was a joy to also have the participation of several youngsters who busily served meals and contributed to the clean up. Thanks for all you do to make this Council so vibrant and successful!

Please remember to mark your calendars for upcoming 1st Sundays and come join us in one or all of the various phases beginning at 6:30 AM to get set up and do meal preparation work, at 9:30 AM after Mass for cooking, serving, and restoration, at 11:30 after Mass for the same, plus clean up, which usually lasts until about 1:00 PM. Wear those green shirts!

Exemplification of Charity, Unity, and Fraternity
January 11th

We held an Exemplification on January 11th after Coffee and Donuts at St. Olaf’s where we welcomed three new Brother Knights; Wayne Stanton, Wesley Jordon, and Jesse Viger.  It was wonderful to have all of them involved with our Pancake Breakfast on February 1st. Please reach out and congratulate them.  If you know of someone who should become a Knight, please invite them to join us by completing the application at bit.ly/joinuskofc.

Virtus Training through the Archdiocese of Seattle

Our Knights of Columbus Council 8297 at St. Olaf’s who are either being or likely to be a volunteer for Knights of Columbus activities in and around St. Olaf’s or St. Cecilia’s, that might involve vulnerable children or adults, necessitates that you get a background check and complete Virtus training through the Archdiocese of Seattle. So, with that, please create an account at https://virtusonline.org/virtus/ and go through the process of obtaining the certifications. This is in addition to any SAFE training and certifications through Knights of Columbus via Praesidium. They are two separate but similar programs that do not interface with one another so we have to do both. Thanks for attending to this as soon as you can so that we can remain compliant with Archdiocesan requirements.

Membership Dues

Council Membership Dues

You should have received billing notices by email and many of you have now paid your dues. For the rest of you, if you’ve lost the email or forgotten about it, please take care of your dues now at this link: https://www.cognitoforms.com/KCHELP2/PayYourCouncilMembershipDues, or by scanning this QR Code:

Note, that if you are new to the Knights of Columbus since January 1, 2025, you are exempt from paying dues this year, however, if you would like to make a contribution to Pennies for Heaven, Least of All My Brethern (LAMB), or a simple donation to our Council, you may also do that using the same links.

Assembly Membership Dues

If you are a 4th Degree Member of our Assembly 2433, your dues are also due and notices have gone out by email. If you haven’t gotten around to it yet, please make your payment at this link: https://www.cognitoforms.com/KCHELP2/PayYourAssemblyMembershipDues, or by scanning this QR Code:

KC HELP

Our Brother Knight volunteers work tirelessly every day to assist people in need of specialized equipment as they deal with the physical effects of aging or recovery from surgeries or accidents. It’s difficult to adequately express the immense gratitude that we see day in and day out and to imagine how these people might have dealt with their difficult circumstances had KC HELP not been available to assist them. If this is something you would like to be involved in, please contact us at 360-981-3179 to join our other Brother Knights in this essential work. In fact, we will likely be calling for a work party to help get caught up on a mass influx equipment that has overwhelmed our regulars. Stay tuned for for more details.

In the last 12 Months KC HELP has provided 5,650 items to 2,957 people totaling $1,475,915 in value, $2,057,938 when including hours and mileage.

Inception to date, KC HELP has provided 17,085 items to 9,121 people totaling $4,946,850 in value, $5,774,181 when including hours and mileage.

Our Council has been an exceptional supporter of KC HELP, not only through the volunteer work of several of our members, but through financial support. Most recently, our Council donated the proceeds from our last Tootsie Roll Drive!

The big news this month is that our building permit for our new Service Center in Bremerton has been signed off by the City of Bremerton and the Fire Marshall. We have applied for our occupancy permit, which, when signed off, means that we can begin the moving process from St. Vincent de Paul in Bremerton to our new location at 939 North Callow. Stay tuned!

A special shout out to Brother Jeff Richardson who coordinated with Labor and Industries and performed all of the needed electrical work and Brother Larry Smith who was our architect and shepherded the whole process through the City of Bremerton. Well done and many thanks to both of these amazing and talented Brother Knights!

Council 11789 Fundraiser for KC HELP

Holy Trinity Council 11789 has planned a Valentine’s Day Dinner/Dance for February 14th as a social event for their Parish but the proceeds will go to benefit KC HELP’s Capital Campaign to raise funds for reducing the debt for the new building in Bremerton.  All are invited! Please save the date and plan to attend if you would like to support this effort. If you can’t attend, please consider donating to the KC HELP Capital Campaign at https://bit.ly/kchelpcapcampaign or by scanning this QR Code:

We will post more details via email as they come in.

Birthdays for February!

Happy Birthday to all of these Brother Knights!

Knight of the Month

Brother Jeff Richardson is our Knight of the Month. As noted above, Brother Jeff pulled the necessary electrical permits from Labor and Industries for our KC HELP Bremerton Service Center, then with his commerical electrical expertise, performed all the necessary electrical work to satisfy the City of Bremerton fire mitigation requirements. We are so grateful for Brother Jeff volunteering for this very essential work that ended up being a significant savings of both time and money for KC HELP.  Brother Jeff is also an inspiration for many through his work as a CCD teacher every Sunday! Thank you Brother Jeff for all you do!

Family of the Month

Our Family of the Month is Paul and Susan Ogilvie. It goes without saying that much of what makes St. Olaf’s so special to our community is because of the hard work of this amazing family. Everywhere you turn, there is an Ogilvie making a difference. Paul in replacing the old, weathered front doors of the church, Susan beautifying our statuaries and spending time with the residents of Brookdale and Martha and Mary, their grandsons Hugh and who Adin who are Altar Servers and so attentively train the up and coming Altar Servers.  This doesn’t touch on even a fraction of the contributions they make for our Parish but we are so appreciative of all that they do. Thank You!

4-Star Council Award

Our District Deputy presented our 4-Star Council Award on January 11th before our Exemplification. Take a look. It mounted in the Parish Hall next to the Knights of Columbus bulletin board. Thanks and Congratulations to all for making this incredible accomplishment possible!

Assembly 2433

We are working toward  rejuvinating our 4th Degree Assembly by welcoming new members and holding monthly Membership Meetings on 3rd Tuesdays at 7 PM. In these initial meetings, we are becoming familiar with traditional protocols and rehearsing honor guard and sword handling techniques. If you would like to become involved in the Patriotic Degree, please come join us in these initial stages. We have agreed to provide a $200 stipend to the first 10 men toward the purchase of their 4th Degree uniforms so this is a great time to take advantage of a very generous opportunity.

The latest Supreme 4th Degree Newsletter is here: https://conta.cc/49VXXWV

Good of the Order

Pray for the health of all our Council’s Brother Knights as our members’ age demographic continues to increase. Specific prayer recipients are our Parish Family Priests Fr Mark Kiszelewski and Fr Albert Arulappan.

Prayers for the health and well-being of Brother Knights PSD Kim Washburn, Tony DeCarlo, Brian Poppell, Gary Fahey, Jim Kellog, David Lasser, Storm and Caroleen Smole, and Bob Tomas. Prayers for Prayers for Wayne Pridgen (friend of Ric Rebar), John Wahlfor’s granddaughter Emily, David Meier, Mike Gugeon (David Meiers’ friend),the McNally Family (Jim Bayer’s aunt), Bill Moriner, Jim Rebar, Nora Bell, Joe Bell’s wife, Steve Reichley and his son and daughter, Ellen Strickland, Mary Therese Bartlett, Leigh Bartlett, Julie Beer, Roy Behling’s wife Karen and daughter’s health, Larry Devlin’s sister-in-law, Anne Wahlfors, Steve Murray, Nancy Rogers, Henry and Cindy Huetter, and our service men (particularly council members) and service women and our many KC HELP clients. Pray to successfully retire the debt on property for KC HELP.

Handy Council-Related Links

If you would like a handy set of Council-related links that you can add to your phone’s home page, try this: bit.ly/m/8297